Malcolm in the Middle (2000) - 22 mistakes in series 1

Revealing: At the start, when Lois tells Hal to raise his arms so she can shave his armpits, if you look at the bottom of the screen you can briefly see that Hal is wearing something to cover up his privates.

Continuity: In the opening, we see Dewey's cold feet. Two shots later, his legs are in a different position.

Continuity: When Lois hangs up on Francis before saying "Oh, I love you," it seems as though the line is already disconnected (as can be heard from the dial tone from Francis' side), but in a later shot, Malcolm and Reese are just about to hang up the phone.

Continuity: When the "Krelborne" teacher comes to the house to tell Lois that Malcolm is gifted, Lois comes to the door naked and puts her arm up on the doorway. On the shot from behind she has her hand low (about where her waist is) from the shot from the front she has her hand up high (above her head).

Continuity: At the end of the scene where Malcolm defeats Spaz, Malcolm throws some chocolate pudding on him and it is dripping off. A few seconds later in the wide shot, Spaz has no chocolate on him.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Stevie is in Malcolm's room. When Stevie is talking you can see the boom mike poking out at the bottom left part of the screen.

Visible crew/equipment: When Malcolm is talking to his first teacher, you can just about see a small part of a microphone at the top of the screen.

Continuity: When Malcolm is in Stevie's room eating cookies, the cookie in Malcolm's right hand disappears and reappears between shots.

Continuity: During the fight between Malcolm and Spath, Spath goes at Malcolm with his right fist, but the closeup of his hand going towards Malcolm and Stevie is his left hand.

Visible crew/equipment: When Dewey yells for Lois because the bow was put on the present, if you look to the left of Lois, you will see a crewmember kneeling down, handing Lois the red dress, who is holding a bucket of water. He quickly gets out of the camera's view. [This is on the DVD of the first season. Someone said on the audio commentary that after catching it, they deliberately left it in to see if anyone would spot it. It's still a mistake, but that's why it's there.]

Continuity: When Lois is yelling at the boys for playing with fire, the location of the green scissors on the table keeps changing between shots.

Other: Reese is playing his Game Boy, yet no game cartridge is in the game slot.

Visible crew/equipment: While Malcolm, Reese, Dewey, and Francis are deliberately making their house messy, you can see right above their ceiling a bright light shining down and a black background. It shows that they film their interior of their house on a set.

Visible crew/equipment: When the boys come out of the front door of the house to load into the van to go to the hospital the camera crew reflection is seen on the large picture window beside the front door.

Continuity: When Malcolm is trying to get the TV back to the channel he was watching, he picks up a big remote and finds the channel which the video camera feed is on, but the remote he is holding on the TV is a smaller one. It then cuts back to Malcolm who is moving his hand away from the remote he just put down and it's the bigger one again.

Continuity: In the scene where Lois finds out about Francis escaping, there are three orange mugs hanging from a rack by the phone. When Lois reaches for the phone to call the police, she makes the middle one start swinging. She and Hal sit down, and the end mug has moved from the rack into a box on the kitchen counter. Also, the mugs are hanging still. Towards the end of the scene, the "fallen" mug is back on the rack, and the middle mug is swinging again.

Revealing: At the end, Malcolm speaks to camera with several children moving in the background. One boy doesn't know where or when to move and he tries to speak to someone off camera. In the end he gives up, shrugs his shoulders and walks off.

Continuity: When Julie passes through the kitchen to get Malcolm, Dewey and Egg are in there cleaning the floor they have suds all over the floor, When Julie runs back through after seeing Malcolm in his underwear she slides across the floor, The floor is still completely covered in suds but when she gets up if you look in the background you see the floor with hardly any suds anywhere. She could not have soaked up all the suds when she slid across.

Plot hole: In this episode Dewey tells Francis that their aunt died from a cat eating her face (or something involving a cat mutilating her face) and we find out this is how she really did die. But then why would it be an open-casket if her face was destroyed?

Continuity: When Lois is in the bath tub soaking after getting upset about the family wanting to go to the funeral. Dewey comes in and ask for juice. When they are on Lois(front view) the suds barely come to the top of her breast. When the show Dewey (side view of Lois) The suds are all the way up to her shoulder.